The Chandra X-ray Observatory (formerly the Advanced X-ray Astronomy Facility (AXAF)), named in honor of Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, was launched and deployed by the Space Shuttle Columbia on July 23, 1999. The combination of high resolution, large collecting area, and sensitivity to higher energy X-rays allows Chandra to study extremely faint sources, sometimes strongly absorbed, in crowded fields. Chandra was boosted into an elliptical high-earth orbit that allows long-duration uninterrupted exposures of celestial objects.

Mission Characteristics

Payload

Single Wolter Type 1 grazing incidence iridium-coated imaging telescope with 10 m focal length. A set of four detectors can be inserted, one at a time, into the focal plane. Two of these were designed to be used primarily with the gratings.

Science Highlights

• First every look at X-ray wavelengths of the compact object at the core of Cas A
• Resolved ring around central pulsar and jet structure
• X-ray images of shock waves from SN 1987a
• First X-ray emission lines from a Gamma Ray Burst (GRB 991216; “Beethoven Burst”)
• Found nearly all main sequence starts are X-ray emitters

Archive